Articles by Kristy Hammond

Dear Colleague, Yesterday, we issued two “demands to bargain” to the administration. A demand to bargain is a process provided for in Oregon state law when a public employer is planning to implement a material change to working conditions when there is a collective bargaining agreement in place. In that case, the union can “demand” that the employer engage in collective bargaining over the proposed changes and their impacts on working conditions. On the advice of our attorney, we issued these demands because the administration has not responded positively to our requests that union representatives be included in the planning…

Dear Colleague, We are pleased to inform you that the membership has ratified the agreement to end bargaining by a vote of 633 to 14. The leadership of UA appreciates how active and engaged you all have been the last few weeks. We are also very aware that important work remains to be done, first and foremost pushing the administration to renew the 12-month career faculty at their current FTE or restoring their FTE as soon as possible. Our 12-month colleagues have contracts that renew on July 1 and there is no way the university can function without their full…

The administration held a town hall today to discuss their plans for reopening campus in fall. While many faculty are excited to resume in-person teaching and research, it is imperative that the safety of our students, colleagues, and community is the primary factor driving decisions and planning around when and how to reopen campus. Our colleague Melissa Graboyes (History and CHC) wrote a thoughtful opinion piece for the Oregonian yesterday, which many faculty have pointed to as representative of concerns they have about this process.On Monday, the university administration sent all faculty and GEs an email from Human Relations Director…

After several exchanges of proposals, our bargaining team has reached an agreement with the administration. In order for our agreement to be finalized, it must be ratified by a vote of the membership. If you are receiving this email, our records indicate that you are a member of United Academics who is currently employed by the University of Oregon. If this information is incorrect, please let us know right away. As a currently active member, you will receive an email at noon on Wednesday with a link so you can vote. Your vote will not be tabulated with your name, so your…

Dear Colleague, Collective bargaining has been suspended since March 11. With so much uncertainty about the state of the university and the academy, neither party felt comfortable resuming bargaining. Over the last week, United Academics and the administration have been working  on a deal that would end this round of bargaining uncompleted. We have not yet agreed to a deal, but we wanted to inform you that we are in negotiations. The intent is to reach a deal quickly before the administration carries out their plan to renew Career faculty at just 0.1 FTE. The deadline for renewal notification has…

Executive SummaryMember responses vary, but with recurring themes. Many members are interested/willing to take some sort of a pay cut if it saves faculty jobs.Many members want oversight over any recouped wages to ensure they go towards supporting the central mission of the university (and not, for instance, new contracts with third-party vendors). Members believe that the proposed starting of cuts at 40K is too low and capping the progressive structure at 200K is also too low. Many members are upset that the administration is using the contracts of the 211 faculty up for renewals as leverage to force an agreement with…

Dear Colleagues, On Tuesday, President Chris Sinclair and Executive Director Dave Cecil met with the UO’s Director of Employee Relations Missy Matella and Executive Vice Provost Janet Woodruff-Borden. They discussed the administration’s wage cut proposal for two hours. They had a follow-up meeting yesterday afternoon. The email below describes the wage cut proposal, UA leadership’s questions and problems with the proposal, ideas we raised during that discussion, and consequences of not agreeing to their proposal. Because these conversations are less than 36 hours old, the email below is not a full summary of all points of the plan or a…

In light of the COVID crisis, many tenure-track and tenured faculty at UO are asking how safe their jobs are. Although not all tenure-track and tenured faculty are in the United Academics bargaining unit, the policies that govern the faculty not in the bargaining unit are similar enough that the processes described below apply to all tenure-track and tenured faculty, save the provision that no bargaining unit faculty can be terminated for financial exigency during the life of the collective bargaining agreement.Below is a description of the job protections and vulnerabilities for the tenure-track and tenured faculty at UO.Once a…

United Academics held our quarterly general membership meeting remotely on Friday, April 10, 2020. The leadership of United Academics understands there are many questions about how the university and the union are dealing with the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. If you have additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact UA. A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page is posted here on the United Academics webpage. The FAQ responds to the dozens of questions we received during the meeting and over the last several weeks. If you don’t see answers to your questions there, drop us a line at [email protected]. We will…

Join us this Friday at 4pm for a UA Town Hall! Please use the link below to join the meeting:https://zoom.us/j/650902861?pwd=MXJCT3RZeFJTS2VpZXYyQmt5T3hQZz09Password: 881126We can’t meet in real life, but we can still get together remotely. Call in to our Spring Union Meeting which will take a town hall format.  We are currently in meetings with administration about a wage cut plan for faculty. We will be discussing the plan and what we know of leadership’s thinking, and we’ll be soliciting your feedback as we move forward. UA officers will also answer your other questions about how the university and the union are…